I'm the director of the azcentral sports team. When people ask me what's the best part of my job, I tell them it's the excitement of the unexpected. No two days are ever the same, and you never know what's right around the corner. I'll use this blog to share my thoughts on the sports world.

Lots of deserving candidates out there for college football's top coaching honor.

Brian Kelly took Notre Dame from unranked to No. 1 and the BCS championship game.

Can't ignore Nick Saban of Alabama and Mark Richt of Georgia, one of whom will win a spot opposite the Irish in the BCS finale.

Great jobs were done all over the place, with at least four in the Pac-12: (Chip Kelly at Oregon, Jim Mora at UCLA, Mike Riley ar Oregon State and David Shaw at Stanford), Bill Snyder at Kansas State and Darrell Hazell at Kent State, Will Muschamp at Florida, Kevin Sumlin at Texas A&M and of course Urban Meyer at unbeaten Ohio State.

But there is one other man who did the most amazing job of the year. In the words of ESPN.com's Rick Reilly, Penn State's Bill O'Brien is "either the coach of the year in college football this season or you melt down the trophy."

If you know me, you know I can't be impartial in this conversation. So check out Reilly's piece; he says it better than I ever could:

Is Phoenix a good sports town? It's a question we debate all the time, and one that is always so hard to quantify.

The Suns of 2012-13 will be a huge litmus test toward finding out where we stand on this point.

The oldest and, over time, most successful pro franchise in the Valley, the Suns have given their fans the luxury of not having to endure too many down periods or those dreaded "five-year rebuilding plans." The most recent bottoming-out, in 2003-04, was followed quickly by the arrival of Steve Nash and the years of excitement that followed.

It's tempting to view the dawn of a new season as a complete re-boot of the franchise, and not link it to the death throes of the Nash era. That's certainly how the team is looking at it. The question is, will the fan base?

As the Suns head "back up the hill" -- that's how team president Lon Babby described the process during an informal lunch today with the media -- can the team get their fans to come along for the ride?

I'd like to think that goes with the territory for an established franchise and a savvy fan base. The ups and downs are part of the experience. We don't like the downs, naturally, but watching a team come together is is one of the most satisfying times for fans.

Will that be what happens with the Suns? Or will there be lingering mistrust over what's happened the past couple of years, a reluctance to buy in to what Babby, Lance Blanks, Alvin Gentry and, yes, Robert Sarver, are trying to do?

Babby and Blanks today talked about not taking fan loyalty for granted, that it has to be earned and re-earned day by day, even as they expect the team to work hard and try to build success the same way. Easy to say, especially in October with a 0-0 record and the euphoria of a new season. Much more difficult to accomplish. But then, the hardest roads sometimes lead to the greatest rewards. I'm fascinated to watch this start to unfold. How about you?

Working in the sports media has brought all sorts of brushes with politicians: Richard Nixon hanging around the locker room after big New York Giants wins in the 1980s ... Senators Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms chatting up football writers when the Carolinas were hoping to lure an NFL expansion team ... Talking sports with Sen. Joe Lieberman as cooled his heels in a newspaper lobby waiting for his escort ... Listening to then-Gov. Lowell Weicker explain how Connecticut was going to lure the Patriots from Foxborough.(How'd that work out?)

But those weren't as strange as having George McGovern show up at one of my softball games. Actually, I guess it wasn't all that strange, seeing how he owned the team.

OK, what he owned was a hotel in Connecticut, but the hotel was sponsoring our softball team. No idea how this ended up happening; I just showed up one day and was handed a "Stratford Inn" jersey.

Many of the obituaries about McGovern, the former U.S. senator and 1972 Democratic presidential candidate who died Sunday, referenced this failed hotel venture. In 1988 he bought the Stratford Inn, an aging motor lodge and restaurant that overlooked the Housatonic River and the Sikorsky helicopter plant, because of a lifelong love of hotels and inns. He sank all of his savings from the lecture circuit into the place but in about two years, in the midst of a pretty tough recession, he had to file for bankruptcy.

On one random Sunday morning in 1989 or '90, the former politician and struggling innkeeper actually stopped by to watch us play. You tend to notice spectators at softball games because usually there aren't any. Yet here was this older gentleman standing on the sideline, who looked a lot like the former presidential candidate, although none of us believed it at first. We knew McGovern owned the hotel, but this was just too weird -- and it wasn't like the ballfield was on the hotel grounds or something.

No, he just stopped by to see us play because he was still relatively new to the business and, I guess, wanted to see something with his hotel's name associated with it. He shook hands with all of us and talked for a few minutes, learned who we were (the team's players held all sorts of jobs, not just newspaper guys), and then left after a couple of innings. This is just who he was. I found out much later that he used to host monthly Sunday forums at the hotel to discuss world events.

All of this was more than 20 years ago, and I haven't thought much about that day, until hearing the news of McGovern's passing yesterday.

I searched the web for "McGovern" and "Stratford Inn," and sure enough all sorts of references popped up. This was a bigger deal than I ever knew. Even though the experience ended in failure for him, it changed his understanding of what it meant to try to run a small business. Often in the decades that followed, he talked about wishing he'd had this first-hand experience when he was in public office.

McGovern's blowout loss to Nixon in 1972 makes some pundits call him one of the biggest footnotes in American politics. I just find it neat to have been a tiny footnote to that footnote.

Who knows how the 2012 NFL season will play out for the 4-0 Cardinals? I sure don't. There are still many more questions than answers about their long-term fate. But I starting to believe one thing -- this is one mentally tough outfit, taking its cue from a confident coaching staff and locker room full of leaders who all have a lot to prove. That quality will take you a long way in the NFL.

When you look at all the reasons the Cardinals could have lost Sunday against Miami, you just have to shake your head:

-- Their quarterback, Kevin Kolb, was sacked 8 times. That's twice as many sacks as he'd suffered in the first 3 games, combined.

-- They overcame a potentially back-breaking 80-yard touchdown bomb with a little over 7 minutes left in the game.

-- They only attempted 15 running plays (compared to 56 passing plays -- actual throws and sacks) and amassed a paltry 28 yards. Three of those running plays were the last three offensive snaps of the game, as the Cardinals positioned themselves for the final field-goal try. So the actual pass-run ratio until those final 3 plays was 56-12. That's Arena Football League balance.

-- They survived two replay reviews that, frankly, I don't know how the referee could have enough visual evidence to confirm what was called on the field.

We started learning about this team's emotional makeup last year, when they turned around a lost season and started to win regularly in the second half, including a stellar performance in overtime games. It was easy to dismiss this, since there was no pressure to speak of, but clearly that set the stage for what we've seen so far this year. Things rarely go well for long stretches in the NFL, so teams have to learn to cope with adversity. The talent level between the top and bottom teams in this league isn't that great, so games usually come down to a few critical plays or mistakes. And depth is so important for success over the long haul of a season.

In a nutshell, that's the 2012 Cardinals, so far.

The Cardinals are 4-0 for the first time since 1974, but right now they seem to have more in common with the '75 team -- the Cardiac Cards, who saw 8 games decided in the final minute and won 7 of them.

Now comes the real test. They have a short week before playing at St. Louis on Thursday. Having played 3 home games already, the Cardinals have to go on the road 7 of their final 12 games. And the way things are going, that Monday night date Oct. 29 against San Francisco is shaping up to be the biggest challenge the Cardinals will have faced in at least three years.

I don't consider myself a packrat (my wife would disagree) but I have to admit there are quite a few things I've collected over several decades of sports writing and editing. The biggie, I guess, are my media guides -- those little information booklets teams and schools produce to help the media do their jobs.

It occurred to me today when I went into our mailroom here at work that, for the first time, I haven't received a single media guide this football season. Oh, I think a few have trickled into the newsroom, but the era of the media guide is, for all intents and purposes, over.

All the information we could possibly want is online, some available generally to the public, other obtained from media-specific websites or portals on team/college sites.

This transformation has been taking place for several years. At first, some teams tried DVD or thumb drive media packets, but now just about everyone, it seems, is strictly online.

It's an obvious and practical step, saving a ton of paper, postage and printing work. But I do miss having those little guides handy.

Some colleges are still producing them -- they can sell them in the bookstore to alumni and, I suppose, there is a recruiting value to these slick publications. (The college books tended to be magazine-sized, rather than the hold-in-your-hand pro models.)

Early in my career I used to save them all, but over time I got rid of most of them. (This will annoy some old friends who toted many heavy boxes of guides during my many household moves -- and let me know how ridiculous I was for saving them.) I finally decided to hang on only to guides with some sentimental value, such as the New York Giants guides I have from my time as a beat writer.

I have a complete set of every New England/Hartford Whaler media guide ever printed. I also have every Penn State football guide from the Joe Paterno era. I have every Yankees media guide dating back from my first game as a kid in 1968. And I'm pretty sure I have every Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers media guide going back to when they moved into Three Rivers Stadium.

But now, it appears I won't be adding to those collections. At least my wife won't have to sign us up for an episode of "Hoarders."

Before last night, I thought nothing would top the 1988 Stanley Cup playoffs as the most Mickey Mouse officiating fiasco in sports history. But I was wrong.

Do you remember the incident? After a conference finals game between the Bruins and Devils in New Jersey, Devils coach Jim Schoenfeld waited in the hallway near the dressing rooms to confront referee Don Koharski. The referee fell down and, thinking Schoenfeld had pushed him, started yelling at the coach. Schoenfeld, in words that live in NHL infamy, called Koharski a "fat pig" and told him to "have another donut."

The NHL suspended Schoenfeld, but the Devils got a court order staying the decision. This infuriated the officials' union so much they boycotted the next game of the series. The NHL had to use local replacement officials for the game, and didn't even outfit them in clothing that looked, well, official -- they wore yellow practice jerseys, and two of them had on Devils' practice pants.

I covered both games and I can tell you it was, simply, a disgrace. All I could remember was that four years earlier Wayne Gretzky had called the Devils a Mickey Mouse organization that was "ruining the whole league." And that's what comes to mind today.

Today, there is no question in my mind the replacement NFL officials are damaging the sport. It's not their fault. They may know the rulebook, but officiating any sport -- and especially at the pro level -- takes more than memorization of the rules. Experienced officials understand the flow of a game, are able to apply good judgment to situations and know how much impact their calls can have on the outcome. I'm not suggesting they play favorites or deliberately look the other way, but they learn what is truly pass interference and what is an even battling for position that should be allowed to play out without a flag being thrown. The replacement guys don't have the body of work to understand this critical nuance.

Fans and media love to criticize umpires and officials but the reality is they get it right the vast majority of the time, and their professionalism (as a group; there are always exceptions) actually enhances the experience.

The NFL is the most successful pro sports league of all time, but it has a major credibility crisis on its hands. Given what's at stake now, and considering the tiny ripple a new deal would have on the league's revenue ocean, I'll be surprised if this replacement era doesn't come to end by the end of the week.

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